Case: Digital studentskrivning i geografi

Sanna Mäki

Department of Geography and Geology

”Digitala prov i Sverige och Finland”, 21.11.2016

Finlandsinstitutet, Stockholm

Geography team in Matriculation examination board

• Teachers and researchers from the universities of Turku and Helsinki

• Experience:

• all PhD in geography (complementary fields), some: teacher degree and

teacher experience

• teaching and teacher training at the university

• participation in national curriculum design processes

• science education, in service teacher training and capacity building

• complementary skills in different methods in geography including GIS, digital

learning environements and digital media

Geographical thinking skills

• Contextualisation

• Region, place, space, scales and hierarchies, interactions, change, everyday life

• In the exam: dissecting topics and structuring answers

Geographical literacy

• Focusing on the big picture and recognizing the anomalies

• Geomedia literacy and environmental literacy

• In the exam: interpreting and using data

Geographic presentation skills

• Methods to generalize complex reality

• Geomedia / models -powerful tool for communication

• In the exam: data processing and (carto)graphic visualizations

What do we assess in Geography exam?

Effects of digitalisation in the exam process

• This reform is a good opportunity to clear the role of geography

education

• Bloom´s taxonomy of different levels of thinking skills structure of the exam

and diverse tasks

• Why digital?

• assessment of current working skills

• enhances process flow: exam production, quality control, assessment and

communicatiion of the results

Structure of the geography exam

PART I (20 p. – obligatory task for all candidates) • multiple choices, short explanations, combining issues, statements

• Basic geographical knowledge; remembering, understanding, applying analysis, evaluation, creation/synthesis

PART II (20 p. / task – candidate takes 2 from 4 tasks) • Tasks related to geography course contents; remembering, understanding,

applying, analysis, evaluation, creation/synthesis

PART III (30 p. / task – candidate takes 2 from 4 tasks) • Geographical knowledge and skills are used in new contexts; remembering,

understanding, applying, analysis, evaluation, creation/synthesis

How does digitalisation change the exam?

• More data, more diverse data and better quality of data

• Geomedia: maps, photos, aerial photos, satellite images, videos, animations

texts…

• From memorising facts towards working with the data

• Skills in data interpretation, data processing and producing variety of

presentations

• Writing text with computer is more fluent than handwriting

• Organising and editing text

• Just faster and more convenient (feedback from the students)

Maps, photos and figures

Zooming

Videos and animations

Interpreting global

weather forecast

Cartogram animation

of greenhouse

emissions

Avalanche as a risk

Animation of a

tsunami wave

Map overlays

Rita ruttens (A-B), synlig i

bilderna, höjdprofil i bifogat

koordinatsystem som kan

öppnas till exempel i

LibreOffice Draw -program…

Articles and other texts

Jämför hur artiklarna i konventionen om barnets rättigheter

tillgodoses för de barn som behandlas i exempelberättelserna.

Skriv ditt svar så att det grundar sig på minst fem artiklar.

Statistical data Ökning och minskning i mängden utsläpp av växthusgaser, landsvis från 1990 till

2010 (%)

Data processing and graphic presentation

Risks and things to consider carefully

• Changes in the working process

• More data more files and versions to organise and manage discipline in

folder structures, file names and clear indexing

• All face-to-face meetings more distant working more risks of confusion

and delays need to tough project management

• Considerations concerning the students

• Increasing data and activities increase cognitive load

• Variety of perceptive skills and related disorders

• Six hours with a computer…

Digital assessment – feedback from sensors

• No inertia caused by mailing papers - no lost exams

• Possibility to automatic assessment

• Anonymous candidates: name, sex, nationality, handwriting…

• Anonymous schools and teachers: effect of ”reputation”

• Flexibility in organising the sensor work

• Assessment calibration is easier

• Repetitive with simple tasks and somewhat exhausting with longer

essays

Results • Score distribution did not change from paper exam – constant level of

difficulty • More structured tasks and changed score system (from 42 to 120 points) scores

lightly more packed in the middle

• Some evidence that students who did not score that high in course exams performed better in this exam and vice versa

• The digital tools were mainly mastered • The tasks were not avoided and the diagrams and drawings were of high quality

• Too much data for some – however the data were used better than ever

• Some difficulties in showing geographical thinking – maybe too structured tasks or effect of “social media style writing”

Thank you! Contact:

Sanna Mäki

sanna.maki@utu.fi

Links to exams:

• Höst 2016 https://svenska.yle.fi/artikel/2016/03/30/geografi-studentexamensproven-2016

• Övningsprov 6.4.2016 https://www.ylioppilastutkinto.fi/se/studentexamen/ovningsprov-6-4-2016